IVES COLLECTIVE Season 2 is in the works! Collective Roy Malan, Susan Freier, violins; Nancy Ellis, viola; Stephen Harrison, ; Keisuke Nakagoshi, piano Sunday, October 2, 2015, 3PM First Congregational Church , Palo Alto Sunday,Please October save 23, 2016,these 4PM dates! Old First Church, San Francisco FallJoaquin Turina: Il Circculo for Piano Trio, Op.91 Ernst von Dohnányi: Quartet No. 2 in Db Major, Op.15 Gabriel Fauré: Piano Quartet No.2 in G minor, Op.45 Collective Kay Stern, violin; Susan Freier, violin/viola; Stephen Harrison, cello; Susan Vollmer, horn; Julie Gregorian, bassoon; Roman Fukshansky, clarinet; Arnold Gregorian, string bass; Guest piano, TBA. Friday, January 27, 2017, 8PM St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto Sunday, January 29, 2016, 4PM WinterOld First Church, San Francisco It’s all Beethoven! String Trio in C minor, Op.9, No. 3; Piano Quartet in Eb Major, Op.16 ; Septet, Op.20 Collective Susan Freier, viola; Stephen Harrison, cello; Elizabeth Schumann, piano; Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano Friday May 5, 2017, 8PM St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Palo Alto Sunday, May 7, 2017, 4PM Old First Church, San Francisco SpringOttorino Respighi: Il Tramonto Johannes Brahms: Songs for voice, viola and piano, Op.91 Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet in C minor, Op.60 2 Collective

IVES COLLECTIVE Roy Malan, Susan Freier, violins; Evan Buttemer, viola Stephen Harrison, cello; Kenneth Goodson, baritone; Laura Dahl, piano

A Celebration of (1910-1981)

Serenade for , Op. 1 (1928) Un poco adagio - Allegro con moto Andante con motoSpring Dance: Allegro giocoso

Dover Beach for Voice and String Quartet, Op. 3 (1931) Poem by Matthew Arnold (1867)

Sonata for Cello and Piano in E Minor, Op. 6 (1932) Allegro Adagio Allegro appassionato

Intermission

Three Songs for Voice and Piano, Op. 10 (1935-6) Poems from James Joyce’s Chamber Music (1907) “Rain Has Fallen” “Sleep Now” “I Hear an Army”

String Quartet in B Minor, Op. 11 (1936) Molto allegro e appassionato Molto adagio Molto allegro

This performance is sponsored in part by a grant from The Ross McKee Foundation.

3 The Chamber Music of Samuel Barber Samuel Barber composed surprisingly little chamber music, and nearly all of what he did write comes from very early in his career. The only piece of chamber music that Barber composed after the age of 30 was his 1955 Summer Music for Wind Quintet. This concert presents all of Barber’s extant chamber music that involves strings (a 1928 Sonata for Violin and Piano was destroyed by the composer), in addition to three settings of poems from James Joyce’s collection Chamber Music. These works were either written while Barber was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music or during the two years that he spent at the American Academy in Rome immediately after his graduation from Curtis in 1934. These are the works that established Barber as a major figure in American music. Barber’s chamber works were his first to be presented in public, his first to be published and his first to be recorded.

Serenade for String Quartet, Op. 1 (1928) Barber was one of the very first students to enroll at the Curtis Institute when it opened in 1924. The fourteen-year old Barber would be based at Curtis for the next nine years, studyng composition, piano and voice. By the time he completed his Serenade, he had been working with the composer Rosario Scalero for almost two years. The charming piece is remarkably accomplished for a student work. While it is a commonplace to note that Barber seems entirely unaffected by the modernist trends of the 1920s (no hints of Stravinsky or Cowell here), it should also be empha- sized that even these early works don’t sound like older composers either. This is already a distinctive and original voice. The first movement opens with a slow introduction, the first gesture of which will turn out to provide the motivic material for the entire work. The following allegro is based on two themes, the first of which is the opening motive in a faster tempo, and the second, a lyrical melody in the viola, is the same motive, but upside-down. The slow movement similarly consists of two melodic statements, each heard twice, with the second a transformation of the motive from the previous movement. The concluding movement is a lively dance, in the character of a menuet, if faster than the old court dance, and more neoclassical in spirit than the rest of the piece. When the dance music repeats, Barber plays a wry trick on both players and audience by converting the original tune from triple meter to a four-beat pattern. The Serenade was first performed by the resident string quartet at Curtis at a concert of student works in 1930. The Curtis Quartet would later perform the Serenade on an all-Barber program for NBC radio in 1935, and, along with Dover Beach and the , it was one of the works that secured Barber a contract with G. Schirmer to publish his music. 4 Dover Beach for Voice and String Quartet, Op. 3 (1931) Barber was probably inspired to write a piece for the unusual combination of voice and string quartet by his teacher Scalero, who had composed two pieces for voice and strings in the early 1920s. Barber was an avid reader of poetry, and songs would form a major part of his future output. Dover Beach stands out from Barber’s other songs both by virtue of its instrumentation and also by its use of a Victorian poem. Matthew Arnold’s well-known lyric poem comes from the middle of the 19th century and apparently appealed to Barber for its pessimism. The young composer responded to the poem very directly and literally. The opening stanza, in which the seashore is described as seen, smelled and heard, begins with a rocking figure in the second violin that evokes the lapping of waves, and the texture changes to high- light the moon shining on the far shore, and the invitation to smell the sweet night air and (most strikingly) to listen to roar of shifting pebbles. The prevailing mood of both song and poem is melancholic. The waves bring an “eternal note of sadness,” Sophocles hears “human misery” in the Aegean Sea, and faith has receded like the tide, leaving the world without joy or light. The one, brief, consolation that we are offered is the hope of human love. This hope can seem inadequate in the poem, but Barber’s passionate and agitated setting of the line suggests that this was the central message for him. Dover Beach was first performed by the Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano , who was doing a graduate program at Curtis in the early 1930s. For years, Dover Beach was only sung by Bampton, or by the composer himself, who made a beautiful recording of it with the Curtis Quartet for RCA in 1935.

Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 6 (1932) The last of the three student works that comprise the first half of the program is the Sonata for Cello and Piano. The Sonata was written for Barber’s friend and Curtis classmate Orlando Cole, a founding member of the Curtis Quartet who would teach at Curtis until 2005 (he died in 2010 at the age of 101). Barber collaborated closely with Cole while composing and revising the sonata, producing a work that is idiom- atic and gratifying for the cello. In Cole’s words, the sonata is “ very cellistic, very singing. It takes advantage of the best qualities of the instrument.” The first movement has two themes, strongly contrasting in character, with one rest- less and agitated and the other noble and singing. Even for a composer known for lyricism and for vocal music, this second theme stands out as one of Barber’s most compelling. Both times that it is presented it is sung first by the cello, and then set as a canon led by the piano. The second movement is a scherzo “sandwich,” with a fleet (and rhythmically tricky) middle section surrounded by two statements of an 5 adagio melody (added to the movement as an afterthought). The final movement is again primarily impassioned, with a few respites in a scherzando character. The first performances of the sonata were by Cole and Barber, including a 1933 League of Composers concerts in New York, but the work was quickly taken up by other cellists, including Luigi Silva, (Cole’s teacher and later col- league) and Gregor Piatigorsky, who recorded it twice.

Three Songs, Op. 10 (1935-36) Barber was awarded the Prix de Rome as the “most talented and deserving student of music in America” in 1935 (one of the works that he submitted for the award was the cello sonata), and he spent the next two years at the American Academy in Rome, a very welcome change after nearly a decade at Curtis. Upon arriving in Rome, he initially concentrated on composing songs, including six songs to texts from James Joyce’s appropriately titled collection of love poems, Chamber Music (Joyce’s claim that the title referred to a chamber pot, rather than to music, appears to have been an inspiration that postdates the poems). Barber was drawn to Irish poetry in general, and was particularly immersed in Joyce while in Rome. The three Joyce settings published as Op. 10, like Dover Beach, effectively evoke the primary emotions of the songs and also highlight crucial words or phrases. One example is the phrase “sleep now” in the second song, which is always set to a descending third, setting it apart as an injunction. The militaristic character of “I hear an army” is even more striking in Barber’s later orchestral version, which is filled with trumpet fanfares and drum tattoos.

String Quartet, Op. 11 (1936) The first hint that Barber would write a string quartet comes from an unusually scatological passage in a 1936 letter to Orlando Cole. “I have vague quartettish rumblings in my innards, and need a bit of celestial Ex Lax to restore my equilibri- um,” wrote Barber, continuing to promise to send Cole “the excrements” in a matter of months. Barber hoped to complete a quartet in time for the Curtis Quartet to play in Italy as part of a European tour. In the end, the quartet was not finished in time for the tour, and would not reach its final form until 1938. The first version of the quartet was completed in December 1936, but Barber already was uncertain about the third movement, which he did not allow the Pro Arte Quartet to play at the first performance. The three-movement version was played by the Gordon Quartet at the Library of Congress in 1937, and by the Curtis Quartet at Town Hall, New York in early 1938, but before publishing the quartet Barber removed the original third movement and replaced it with a short section that repeats material from the open- ing movement (he also substantially revised the first movement). He had no such 6 qualms about the slow movement, which he described to Cole as “a knockout” immediately after completing it, and which soon achieved immortality as the “Adagio for Strings” after being arranged for string orchestra and performed by Arturo Toscanini. Familiar and beloved as this music is in the orchestral version, the original quartet setting gives more of a sense of a conversation between four vulnerable voices, and more readily betrays Barber’s interest at the time in vocal polyphony of the Italian Renaissance. -- Notes by Dr. Derek Katz

ROY MALAN, violin, serves as solo violinist with Following degrees from Stanford in Music and the California Symphony and Opera Parallèle, Biology as a Ford scholar, SUSAN FREIER, and was the long-time concertmaster and violin, pursued an advanced degree at the solo violinist for the San Francisco Ballet. The Eastman School of Music. In her first year, founding director of the Telluride Chamber she co-formed the Chester String Quartet Music Festival, he has an extensive career of and won the Cleveland Quartet competition, performance domestically as well as in Canada, working with Eastman’s Cleveland Quartet and Mexico, , Australia, and Africa to his credit. the Aspen School of Music. The quartet went He is also widely recorded on the Genesis, Orion, on to win the Evian, Munich International, and other labels, Roy was formerly a member Portsmouth (England) and Chicago Discovery of Porter Quartet, Stanford String Quartet, Ives compe¬titions. After leaving Eastman, the Quartet, and the San Francisco Piano Trio, among Chester became faculty ensemble-in-residence others. Educated at London’s Royal Academy of at Indiana University. In 1989, Susan joined Music under Yehudi Menuhin, he also attended Stanford’s faculty and the Stanford String Juilliard and the Curtis Institute, where he was a Quartet. A participant at the Aspen, Grand student of Ivan Galamian and Efrem Zimbal- Teton and Newport Music Festivals, she has ist (he authored the latter’s biography). Roy performed on NPR, the BBC and German State currently serves on the faculty of the University Radio and recorded on the Newport Classics, of California, Santa Cruz, plays locally with a Stolat, Pantheon, Laurel, Music and Arts, and string quartet, piano trio, and music festival CRI labels. A former artist-faculty member at the engagements. He has been a member of SFCMP Pacific Music Festival, Music in the Mountains, since 1976. the Rocky Ridge Music Center, and the Orfeo Music Festival (Italy) Ms. Freier teaches and per¬forms at the Mendocino Music Festival, the SoCal Music Workshop, and the Telluride Chamber Music Festival. She is now Co-Artistic Director of the Ives Collective. 7 STEPHEN HARRISON, cellist, has been on the LAURA DAHL, piano, is an active international faculty at Stanford University since 1983 when performer and educator, appearing in venues in- he returned to his native Bay Area to become cluding Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonic, cellist of the newly formed Stanford String San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall and Stern Quartet. His performing life has combined Grove Festival, the Carmel Bach Festival, and the chamber, solo and contemporary music. During Henley Festival in Great Britain. A specialist in his fourteen years with the Stanford String collaborative performance and chamber music, Quartet he recorded and toured internationally Dahl is the founder and artistic director of Music with a number of works commissioned for the by the Mountain, a chamber music festival in ensemble, including those by Pulitzer-Prize win- northern California, and the A. Jess Shenson ning composer William Bolcom, Ben Johnston, Recital Series at Stanford University. Dahl is and Donald Crockett. In 1998 he co-founded a member of the music faculty at Stanford the Ives Quartet, performing, recording (on University, where she teaches collaborative and the Naxos, New World and AIX Entertainment solo piano, chamber music, art song interpre- labels) and teaching with that ensemble in the tation, and diction. She has also taught at the Bay Area and around the U.S. until 2015. He is New National Theatre Young Artists Training now Co-Artistic Director of the Ives Collective. Program in Tokyo, Japan, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory and Boston University’s School for the Arts (where Dahl’s education featured training on both he won the award for Distinction in Graduate coasts of the US and in Germany. She was the Performance), he has been solo cellist of the first musician to be named a German Chancel- San Francisco Contemporary Music Players lor’s Scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt since 1985. With the Contemporary Players, he Foundation. She lived two years in Germany, has given over 50 world premieres and made studying under pianist Phillip Moll, pianist and commercial recordings for the CRI, Albany, composer Aribert Reimann, and baritone Diet- Music and Arts, New Albion, Newport Classics, rich Fischer-Dieskau. Dahl holds degrees from New World and YBM labels. the University of Michigan School of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. A grad- Former principal cellist of the Chamber uate of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Symphony of San Francisco and the New Dahl served as Assistant Conductor for Western England Chamber Orchestra, he is currently Opera Theater and was Associate Director of principal cellist of the Mendocino Music Festival the San Francisco Boys Chorus. She has been a Orchestra, cellist at the Telluride Chamber coach at the New England Conservatory of Music Music Festival and on the faculty at the SoCal and the University of Michigan Opera Theater. Chamber Music Workshop. Mr. Harrison has She was an invited fellow at the prestigious served as artist / faculty at the Rocky Ridge Tanglewood Music Center for two years and also Music Center, and at Italy’s Schlern and Orfeo studied at the Banff Academy of Singing and International Music Festivals. the Music Academy of the West. Dahl was born and raised in the western states of Colorado and 8 Montana. EVAN BUTTEMER, viola, performs with a KENNETH GOODSON, baritone, has appeared in diverse array of Bay Area ensembles. He the San Francisco Bay Area as a soloist and con- is currently principal viola of the Stockton cert artist for two decades. While most of these symphony, and plays as a substitute with the performances are with ensembles at Stanford Santa Rosa symphony, the Oakland symphony, University, where he serves on the faculty, he has the California symphony, and the San Francisco also performed with the San Francisco Choral Symphony. Society in Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) and War Requiem (Britten) at Davies Symphony Hall. Oth- Evan is also an active chamber musician, and er credits include Cantata Misericordium (Britten) has focused on chamber music from a young with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Die age. He earned his graduate degree in Cham- Schöne Magelone (Brahms) as a Carmel Music ber Music performance at the San Francisco Society Series Artist, and Carmina Burana (Orff) Conservatory of Music. He also has a keen with Masterworks Chorale. Goodson’s musical interest in contemporary music, and performs education included a year in Berlin with baritone with ensembles such as Opera Parallel, Wild Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and consecutive Rumpus, and the San Francisco Contemporary summer voice fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Players. Music Festival. At Stanford, Goodson chairs the Evan enjoys occasional forays from the classical Mechanical Engineering Department. realm. He is a frequent studio recording artist for albums, video game scores, and movie soundtracks. He is an original member and frequent performer with the Magik*Magik orchestra, and has toured North America with Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, an 'Ostad' or master of traditional Persian music.

SPRING SALON: MAY 22, 2016, 4PM Samuel Barber: A Celebration Music in Context, a parallel salon series in a private Palo Alto home once owned by members of Gertrude Stein’s family, offers an afternoon exploration of an engaging facet or work in the current repertory and is followed by a champagne reception. SalonPlease call 650.224.7849Series to book your tickets. 9 Ives Collective concerts are possible because of YOUR generosity! Charitable support covers more than half of the programming expens- es, allowing us to provide you and all of our audience members with extraordinary concerts and memorable music at affordable prices. Every gift is important because, without contributions from you and others, our lowest priced ticket would be well over $100! You may help the Ives Collective with your one-time or recurring generous tax-deductible donation in three easy ways: • through our website at www.ivesquartet.org, • add a donation to your subscription or ticket order, or contact: Executive Director, Pam Lampkin, at 650.224.7849 or [email protected] to discuss how you can make a difference to our ensemble.

Thank you from the Board of Directors and musicians. Walter Lee, President Anne Baldwin, Treasurer Mark Faigenbaum, Secretary John Houghton Jane Troy Johnson Kamyar Mohajer Judy Rock John Yarborough Susan Freier & Stephen Harrison, Artistic Directors Pam Lampkin, Executive Director

10 Thank you for supporting our exciting first Ives Collective season! Your generous annual support allows us to present a diverse array of performances featuring outstanding guest musicians from all over the country. Perhaps you meant to make a donation but haven’t yet? We invite you to join the expanding list of donors who have made a tax-deductible contribution to the Annual Fund. Every Gift Counts! (Contributions from the following donors were received between JJuly 1, 2015 - April 18, 2016)

OVATION CIRCLE PATRON’S CIRCLE William & Judith Kays ($10,000+) ($100-$249) Joanne Carey Anonymous Sondra & Gordon Clark Michael Condie Corinna & Mark Faigenbaum Alfred & Elizabeth Dossa Eva Kryska Tom & Nancy Fiene Samuel & Thea Leavitt ENCORE CIRCLE Helena R. Foster Yun & Ding Lu ($5,000-$9,999) Dr. Harry & Susan Hartzell Joyce Rosenstiel Esther & Walter Hewlett William & Anne Hershey Sidney Simon Anne Walker & David Jones Teresa T. Merchant VIRTUOSO’S CIRCLE Ron & Renate Kay Susan & Michael Bratman ($2,500-$4,999) Judith Ets-Hokin & Trygve Liljestrand Anne Baldwin Bonnie Packer GIFTS IN KIND Susan Schaps & Robert Shelton Ruth Waldhauer Colorprint, discounted printing Mimi & Jim Van Horne Rosendo J. & Leslie O. Pont Janet Dafoe & Ron Davis Roland & Lois Feller Derek Katz, program notes GUEST ARTIST’S CIRCLE Joan B. Norton Ledwith, Houghton & Co., CPA’s ($1,000-$2,499) Stephen & Judith E. Rock Yvonne Wun, Walter & So Kam Lee Phil & Sara Salsbury discounted graphic design Francis & Christine Currie COMPOSER’S CIRCLE Stephen Harrison & Susan Freier FOUNDATION DONORS ($500-$999) Andrew Lan Ross McKee Foundation Eric Ambjor Lee & Maria Shahinian Ruth Freier Anne Prescott Please donate at David & Betsy Fryberger www.ivesquartet.org OR Robert & Joyce Kleiner FRIEND’S CIRCLE call 650.224.7849 OR mail check to: Kamyar Mohajer (UP TO $99) Ives Quartet Becky & Larry Reed Glenda Jones P.O. Box 60464 John Yarborough Barbara Hastorf Palo Alto, CA 94306 Frances Harrington PRINCIPAL’S CIRCLE Leonard Heil Your current employer may match ($250-$499) Henry Lesser your contribution to the Ives Elizabeth Chamberlain Sue Levine Collective. Lisa & Matt Chanoff Dr. Richard L. Sogg Luis Trabb Pardo & Sharmon Hilfinger Surajit Bose Contact your company’s human Bob Zipkin & Pam Lampkin Annemarie Rosengreen resources professional for details. Mike Jacobson & Trine Sorenson Hans & Nina Cohn Joseph J. Sturkey Peter & Sonia Lobban The Ives Quartet, Doing Business as Jane & Bill Johnson Dieter & Erika Scherer the Ives Collective, is a 501c(3) Amalia & Harvey Popell Gerhard E. Hahne organization. (Tax ID# 77-0492473)

11 www.ivesquartet.org • 650.224.7849